Kremlin: Putin to visit Paris in November

In November Russian President Vladimir Putin is heading to Paris, where he will attend a ceremony commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the end of the first world war.

“We plan on flying to Paris on November 11th. We will take part in the ceremony at the Champs Elysees fields,” Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said on October 16th.

The ceremony will be attended by other heads of state, including US President Donald Trump who confirmed his attendance at the event.

Answering a question regarding if the Russian and American heads of state can conduct talks while at the French capital, Ushakov stated that there have been no discussions about a possible meeting. He said that Putin will go to a business breakfast organized by French president Emmanuel Macron, and then lay flowers at the monument of fallen Russian soldiers in Paris.

Ushakov also confirmed that the American National Security Advisor John Bolton will visit Moscow early next week, he will hold talks with the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev.

The relationship between Moscow and the West significantly worsened in 2014, after the annexation of the Crimea, because of Moscow’s role in the wars in Donbas and Syria, due to the likely interference by the Kremlin in the US and Europe’s elections as well as the poisoning of the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK in March 2018.

The July meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki, could not change the nature of the relationship, the US administration continues to impose new sanctions against Russia.